Salesforce will adopt Microsoft’s cloud

as the companies cozy up again
Said Thursday it will move its Marketing Cloud service to Microsoft’s Azure public cloud, putting aside the rivalry between the two companies.

Microsoft’s share of the public cloud market remains smaller than market leader Amazon Web Services but has gained wider adoption from customers under CEO Satya Nadella. Last month, Microsoft won a contract to supply the Pentagon with cloud-computing services during a deal that would be worth the maximum amount as $10 billion, and in July, Microsoft announced a cloud agreement with AT&T.

Salesforce online training and Microsoft have had a sophisticated relationship over the years, with executives taking occasional public potshots at one another. They compete in multiple areas, including Salesforce’s core business of customer relationship management: Salesforce has the Sales Cloud and Microsoft fields the less popular Dynamics 365 cloud service.
In a 2014 detente, the businesses signed a product partnership. Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff credited Nadella’s collaborative approach as driving the turnaround and even invited him to a prime speaking position at the company’s Dreamforce conference. In 2015, Microsoft considered buying Salesforce, but talks broke down over price.
Then in 2016, the businesses got into a fierce bidding war over LinkedIn, which Microsoft ended up winning, and Benioff’s rhetoric soured. “You know, maybe the new Microsoft is really the old Microsoft,” he told CNBC’s, Jim Cramer.

Now, Salesforce has chosen Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure to run one among its products around the world. Under Nadella, Microsoft has also previously allied with competitors like Red Hat and VMware.
In addition to adopting Azure, Salesforce also will develop technology to integrate its Sales Cloud and repair cloud products with Microsoft’s Teams communication app. Teams compete with Slack, and Salesforce has its own social network for an internal business discussion called Chatter. The idea is to enhance interoperability between Chatter and Teams, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Salesforce currently depends on Amazon’s cloud to assist run its online services, and in 2017 it said it might also use Alphabet’s Google Cloud Platform to deliver services. Salesforce so far has run Marketing Cloud on its own internal infrastructure, a spokesperson told CNBC.
Representatives of the 2 companies declined to speak about what proportion Salesforce will spend on Microsoft Azure online Training.

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